Holding Space Part 1 of 2: Racial Justice Facilitation Skills Series

Taquelia Washington and Jo Brownson

***This is a 2-day training so please also register for Part 2 on 11/2/20 since participation on both days is required.

Training Description

In part one or this two-part module, participants will learn the basic frameworks and tools for facilitating complex conversations and creating racially just learning spaces for those in their care. Trainers will use somatic techniques, structures and protocols for adult learning, and real-life examples to frame the learning. Part one will focus on understanding the tools and structures while part two will provide participants an opportunity to practice and receive feedback.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the core aspects of a responsive and racially just agenda and structures to support equitable participation
• Articulate the purpose of community agreements and brainstorm examples of agreements that protect the status quo and those that disrupt it

Meet Our Trainers

Taquelia Washington is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and has extensive experience working in community mental health, specializing in providing services in the school systems. She has close to 20 years of experience working in the field, with over 10 of those years spent working at a continuation school, providing mental health related services to “at risk” and “hard to engage” youth while also developing systems of care to help best support them. In addition to her clinical background, she is the founder of EmpowerMe! Services. Through this business, along with a team of subcontractors, she teaches workshops designed to help individuals and systems to be more culturally inclusive, she facilitates courageous conversations as requested by a variety of organizations, and provides leadership coaching. Additionally, she offers consultation to help support the development of culturally inclusive services and systems of care. She brings all of herself to her individual work as well as her teaching endeavors. She strives to create a safe space for her students to focus on their own healing, self-growth, and empowerment.

To find out more information about Taquelia, including her philosophy and approach check out: www.empowermeservices.com.

Jo Brownson is a racial justice educator and facilitator based in the bay area. She has worked in the field of education and racial justice for over a decade in K-12 classrooms and in the nonprofit sector. As a white, queer, cisgender woman, her area of practice is in supporting individuals and organizations to understand how whiteness is operating inside their context, how it intersects with other systems of oppression, and what they can do to mitigate and transform its impacts. Jo is the daughter of a minister who moved around the south and Midwest as a child. She began teaching in Philadelphia before landing in Oakland (her forever home) with her wife in 2011 where she taught at Fremont High School in east Oakland until 2013. Since then, she has been a facilitator and coach with the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools. There, her work focuses on transforming the beliefs and practices of educators and school leaders and organizing them in service of more equitable outcomes for their students of color, students living in poverty, and LGBTQ students. In 2020, she founded Tangled Roots to apply her knowledge of anti-oppression facilitation, organizational change processes and adult learning to contexts within and beyond the education sector.

To find out more information about Jo, including her philosophy and approach check out: https://ourtangledroots.com/.